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Closing remarks at a mobility symposium
Journal of Terramechanics, 1972, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 69 to 72. Pergamon Press Printed in Great Britain.
EDITOR'S
NOTE
There follows a statement of opinion which concluded the Mobility Symposium held at E1 Segundo, California, on 3 4 November, 1970, under the auspices of Thomson, Ramo, Woolridge Inc. and the I.S.T.V.S. It is a striking plea for a more business-like approach to mobility research. CLOSING
REMARKS
AT A MOBILITY
SYMPOSIUM
M. G. BEKKER* MR. CHAIRMAN, GENTLEMEN,
The user and the manufacturer of motor vehicles for civilian, military and lunar surface locomotion have dramatized their problem at this Symposium in a series of motion pictures. They have demonstrated with a great force that the costly mechanical systems with which they are concerned are much more complex than the microproblems of soil mechanics. In contrast to this truism, at which only a few speakers hinted, some 90 per cent of the presentations made here were solely concerned with simplistic idealizations of soil-wheel interaction or grandiose, computerized generalizations of a do-it-all scheme for limited applications. You have thus witnessed the further widening of the gap between the customer and the researcher, between the demand and supply; the gap which for some time has been so great that it has threatened not only the useful life of this Society but also the very existence of this research; the gap that made vehicle designer, manufacturer, and user practically indifferent to research. As we face here a serious situation, I would like to dwell on this problem at length, although I realize that the hour is late and that we are overdue in adjourning this strenuous meeting. But, before I plunge into the crevasse that separates the researcher and his customer, let me say that the interest shown in off-road locomotion by T R W not only calls for our thanks and appreciation of the effort spent on preparation for the Symposium but also generates a hope that this fine organization will further support our work and help to solve our dilemma. There are many causes which made the marriage between the researcher on one hand, and the user and motor vehicle industry on the other, almost totally sterile. As I have no time to discuss all of them I should like to make only a very few points which, in my opinion, form the core of the problem. In order to do this in a poignant but brief presentation, let me assume the role of a man who, like the Fiddler on the Roof, dreams what he would do if he were very, very rich. Assume that I am a businessman with one million dollars in my pocket, and that *224 E. Islay Street, Santa Barbara, California 93101. 69
70
M.G. BEKKER
I came to this Symposium with the purpose of finding a good investment for my money in the ideas brought up by the researcher. Thus, as a businessman, manager and investment banker I will not look upon your reports as a technician, for I would be lost in technical detail reported by the technicians, instead, I shall take a bird's-eye view and look for concrete practical achievements, for the school o/'thought, for leadership and vision, and your potential to grow. When doing this I found with deep regret that I was not impressed with the studies of soil and wheel, performed in conjunction with lunar surface locomotion. What you offered me was in the realm of intangible promise such as that your "investigations may provide a basis for improved theory for analysis of terrain-vehicle interaction", or that you "examine (the new findings) in order to provide a basis for evaluating the rationale for the use (of the new method) as a predictive tool". This gave me nothing to buy. in addition, I doubt that your methods will be better than those I already have in numerous textbooks published in this country and abroad. Your referencing was extremely poor. 1 doubt you have the perspective of the whole problem. You seem to work in a lunar v a c u u m . . , and in splendid isolation. I have not been given any forecast as to how much time and money you need to produce practical results. Since your homework was incomplete and superficial, you proposed occasionally what we had already done. For example, take that "flexible wheel (which) may be considered as a rigid wheel with a larger radius". We dwelled on that idea in 1956 and the others developed fine engineering solutions in 1959 and 1966. I cannot buy this. However, I was very much interested in G r u m m a n wheel because it has great practical potential. I expected to hear much about it. Instead I learned that the General Motors wheel was the worst power consumer. Why did NASA then select the General Motors wheel ? This whole wheel business seemed to me to be more of an academic exercise than an exhaustive engineering analysis of pertinent subsystems and their interfaces. At this point, I do not wish to create an impression that I am against scienqfic research--I am not. And I would support it if I knew that people engaged in this work have previously contributed to the solution of my problems. But they have never shown, to my knowledge, any practical achievement in off-road locomotion and I cannot support them. The decision was strengthened with the observation that all the topics discussed at the lunar locomotion session were discussed and resolved 10 years ago. In my opinion nothing new was added at this Symposium except new faces. Organizations responsible for lunar soil-vehicle systems used to change their crews quite a few times. Each time the newcomers were ignoring the past achievements and starting from scratch, with zeal and without control. Besides that, the lunar problem is different from my problem. For instance, with the multi-billion dollar Apollo Program they must map the micro- and macro-profile of the moon surface and simulate the traversing of lunar terrain. But, l stlongly doubt we should do the same on this planet. Research papers concerned with terrestrial off-road locomotion were no more promising for business. They were either academic dissertations, low priority engineering reports, or advertising material. Some of them dwelled on sheer nonsense. The others were fine competent generalizations without any indication for need or pay-off.
CLOSING REMARKS AT A MOBILITY SYMPOSIUM
71
When listening, for instance, to reports on probabilistic, computerized approaches to vehicle speed and ride comfort, I felt a slight discomfort; these excellent methods have been with us since the early sixties and only led to very crude predictions (that could have been obtained in a more simple manner) unless monitored step by step by experiment. Now, these experiments were shown to be very expensive and, plus computer time, run into tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle. I simply have not enough money to support such a broad program. The same comment applies to the doctorial thesis which was read here and specified 1024 empirical coefficients per one vehicle in order to determine its vibrations. To give you another example of why 1 am so much dissatisfied, take the paper about variable inflation pressure in a tire. Many other groups, as far as I could ascertain, wound up this kind of work in the late fifties. I feel it is cheaper to read their books and magazines than to invest in another program of this type. The most disturbing experience I had, however, was to listen to a presentation that bordered with something unbelievable if not ridiculuus. The authors of that presentation took cone penetrometer, Cohron sheargraph, Weiss' soil truss, "friction wheel" and a bizarre probe which no one had ever seen before. By performing hundreds of tests they tried to correlate some arbitrary aspect of truck performance with the "indices" produced by these instruments. Reported results--negative. No correlation. This I fully expected, for we made enough of such tests during the past 15 years in order to reject this kind of instrumentation. What shook me however, was not the naive empirics but the absence in this gadget collection of the most modern instrumentation used in this country and abroad, instrumentation used with a success that has not been achieved by any other method. Why such an omission? What research policy, if not politics, have effected such a decision ? It is obvious that the originators of the "cone index" and the recently created though not new "G-value", are unhappy and look for something better. They have been doing this since the end of World War II and apparently cannot make up their minds. The Russians, who perform more research than anyone else in ground mobility seem to know how to measure soils, turf, muskeg and snow. I have never seen in Russian literature the use of, cone penetrometer for parametric prediction of design and performance. They never discussed "cone index" or " G " for practical purposes of soil-vehicle system analysis, though they reported and analyzed other methods and instrumentation, totally neglected in this unfortunate presentation. I believe that the most significant paper presented at this Symposium was that by Professor Yong. Although Dr. Yong addressed himself to the question of using cone in prediction of wheel performance, he clearly implied that there are available other simpler methods to achieve that goal. He also inferred that cone method, if successful at all, will require much research. When I asked how much, he told us as you heard, "10 years". Here we are, gentlemen, in 1970; there must be something basically wrong with this business if we realize that the cone penetrometer was invented in 1933. I am sure you agree that under these circumstances I cannot finance an enterprise which is lacking vision and grand strategy. What left me particularly cold were these unfinished papers addressed not to me as a businessman but to other technicians. Papers written without the appreciation of the overall problem and final pay-off. However, ! am not discouraged. I shall return. ! hope you will then have something
72
f
M . G . BEKKER
or sale. To make our future meetings more constructive, let me submit for your eventual consideration a few guidelines which we in the business and the management have adopted with full success: --Consolidate what you have nationally and internationally before you embark upon your new private venture. - - P r o m o t e what you have, not what you would like to have. - - S h o w potential gains in your proposal before you start selling your ideas. --Address yourself to vehicle user, designer and manufacturer, not to yourselves or to the Academe. - - N e v e r forget that not your peers, but the customer is your jury. We are not in Science. - - R e m e m b e r this is a straightforward applied mechanics and automotive engineering. It has very little to do with soil mechanics. --Cultivate professional heritage and good managerial practice with long-range planning for practical results. This closes my remarks which I have made as the Devil's Advocate. Before we adjourn, however, let me again stress the challenge we face. We have accomplished much during the past 15 years. It is now time to use our knowledge for the benefit of the user. What is needed today is not an endless search for perfection in an abstract vacuum, but pragmatic development of terrain-vehicle system analyses. Only when performing such analyses for specific systems, and only then, shall we develop meaningful improvements of the state of the art. There is no other way, in my opinion, to satisfy the user of our research, and to keep our dwindling business alive with the hope for survival, if not expansion. It seems obvious that implementation of these suggestions requires change in the intellectual leadership of this Society and in the management of research. This question, however, goes far beyond the scope of my remarks closing this Symposium. Thank you very much.
EDITOR'S
NOTE
There follows a statement of opinion which concluded the Mobility Symposium held at E1 Segundo, California, on 3 4 November, 1970, under the auspices of Thomson, Ramo, Woolridge Inc. and the I.S.T.V.S. It is a striking plea for a more business-like approach to mobility research. CLOSING
REMARKS
AT A MOBILITY
SYMPOSIUM
M. G. BEKKER* MR. CHAIRMAN, GENTLEMEN,
The user and the manufacturer of motor vehicles for civilian, military and lunar surface locomotion have dramatized their problem at this Symposium in a series of motion pictures. They have demonstrated with a great force that the costly mechanical systems with which they are concerned are much more complex than the microproblems of soil mechanics. In contrast to this truism, at which only a few speakers hinted, some 90 per cent of the presentations made here were solely concerned with simplistic idealizations of soil-wheel interaction or grandiose, computerized generalizations of a do-it-all scheme for limited applications. You have thus witnessed the further widening of the gap between the customer and the researcher, between the demand and supply; the gap which for some time has been so great that it has threatened not only the useful life of this Society but also the very existence of this research; the gap that made vehicle designer, manufacturer, and user practically indifferent to research. As we face here a serious situation, I would like to dwell on this problem at length, although I realize that the hour is late and that we are overdue in adjourning this strenuous meeting. But, before I plunge into the crevasse that separates the researcher and his customer, let me say that the interest shown in off-road locomotion by T R W not only calls for our thanks and appreciation of the effort spent on preparation for the Symposium but also generates a hope that this fine organization will further support our work and help to solve our dilemma. There are many causes which made the marriage between the researcher on one hand, and the user and motor vehicle industry on the other, almost totally sterile. As I have no time to discuss all of them I should like to make only a very few points which, in my opinion, form the core of the problem. In order to do this in a poignant but brief presentation, let me assume the role of a man who, like the Fiddler on the Roof, dreams what he would do if he were very, very rich. Assume that I am a businessman with one million dollars in my pocket, and that *224 E. Islay Street, Santa Barbara, California 93101. 69
70
M.G. BEKKER
I came to this Symposium with the purpose of finding a good investment for my money in the ideas brought up by the researcher. Thus, as a businessman, manager and investment banker I will not look upon your reports as a technician, for I would be lost in technical detail reported by the technicians, instead, I shall take a bird's-eye view and look for concrete practical achievements, for the school o/'thought, for leadership and vision, and your potential to grow. When doing this I found with deep regret that I was not impressed with the studies of soil and wheel, performed in conjunction with lunar surface locomotion. What you offered me was in the realm of intangible promise such as that your "investigations may provide a basis for improved theory for analysis of terrain-vehicle interaction", or that you "examine (the new findings) in order to provide a basis for evaluating the rationale for the use (of the new method) as a predictive tool". This gave me nothing to buy. in addition, I doubt that your methods will be better than those I already have in numerous textbooks published in this country and abroad. Your referencing was extremely poor. 1 doubt you have the perspective of the whole problem. You seem to work in a lunar v a c u u m . . , and in splendid isolation. I have not been given any forecast as to how much time and money you need to produce practical results. Since your homework was incomplete and superficial, you proposed occasionally what we had already done. For example, take that "flexible wheel (which) may be considered as a rigid wheel with a larger radius". We dwelled on that idea in 1956 and the others developed fine engineering solutions in 1959 and 1966. I cannot buy this. However, I was very much interested in G r u m m a n wheel because it has great practical potential. I expected to hear much about it. Instead I learned that the General Motors wheel was the worst power consumer. Why did NASA then select the General Motors wheel ? This whole wheel business seemed to me to be more of an academic exercise than an exhaustive engineering analysis of pertinent subsystems and their interfaces. At this point, I do not wish to create an impression that I am against scienqfic research--I am not. And I would support it if I knew that people engaged in this work have previously contributed to the solution of my problems. But they have never shown, to my knowledge, any practical achievement in off-road locomotion and I cannot support them. The decision was strengthened with the observation that all the topics discussed at the lunar locomotion session were discussed and resolved 10 years ago. In my opinion nothing new was added at this Symposium except new faces. Organizations responsible for lunar soil-vehicle systems used to change their crews quite a few times. Each time the newcomers were ignoring the past achievements and starting from scratch, with zeal and without control. Besides that, the lunar problem is different from my problem. For instance, with the multi-billion dollar Apollo Program they must map the micro- and macro-profile of the moon surface and simulate the traversing of lunar terrain. But, l stlongly doubt we should do the same on this planet. Research papers concerned with terrestrial off-road locomotion were no more promising for business. They were either academic dissertations, low priority engineering reports, or advertising material. Some of them dwelled on sheer nonsense. The others were fine competent generalizations without any indication for need or pay-off.
CLOSING REMARKS AT A MOBILITY SYMPOSIUM
71
When listening, for instance, to reports on probabilistic, computerized approaches to vehicle speed and ride comfort, I felt a slight discomfort; these excellent methods have been with us since the early sixties and only led to very crude predictions (that could have been obtained in a more simple manner) unless monitored step by step by experiment. Now, these experiments were shown to be very expensive and, plus computer time, run into tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle. I simply have not enough money to support such a broad program. The same comment applies to the doctorial thesis which was read here and specified 1024 empirical coefficients per one vehicle in order to determine its vibrations. To give you another example of why 1 am so much dissatisfied, take the paper about variable inflation pressure in a tire. Many other groups, as far as I could ascertain, wound up this kind of work in the late fifties. I feel it is cheaper to read their books and magazines than to invest in another program of this type. The most disturbing experience I had, however, was to listen to a presentation that bordered with something unbelievable if not ridiculuus. The authors of that presentation took cone penetrometer, Cohron sheargraph, Weiss' soil truss, "friction wheel" and a bizarre probe which no one had ever seen before. By performing hundreds of tests they tried to correlate some arbitrary aspect of truck performance with the "indices" produced by these instruments. Reported results--negative. No correlation. This I fully expected, for we made enough of such tests during the past 15 years in order to reject this kind of instrumentation. What shook me however, was not the naive empirics but the absence in this gadget collection of the most modern instrumentation used in this country and abroad, instrumentation used with a success that has not been achieved by any other method. Why such an omission? What research policy, if not politics, have effected such a decision ? It is obvious that the originators of the "cone index" and the recently created though not new "G-value", are unhappy and look for something better. They have been doing this since the end of World War II and apparently cannot make up their minds. The Russians, who perform more research than anyone else in ground mobility seem to know how to measure soils, turf, muskeg and snow. I have never seen in Russian literature the use of, cone penetrometer for parametric prediction of design and performance. They never discussed "cone index" or " G " for practical purposes of soil-vehicle system analysis, though they reported and analyzed other methods and instrumentation, totally neglected in this unfortunate presentation. I believe that the most significant paper presented at this Symposium was that by Professor Yong. Although Dr. Yong addressed himself to the question of using cone in prediction of wheel performance, he clearly implied that there are available other simpler methods to achieve that goal. He also inferred that cone method, if successful at all, will require much research. When I asked how much, he told us as you heard, "10 years". Here we are, gentlemen, in 1970; there must be something basically wrong with this business if we realize that the cone penetrometer was invented in 1933. I am sure you agree that under these circumstances I cannot finance an enterprise which is lacking vision and grand strategy. What left me particularly cold were these unfinished papers addressed not to me as a businessman but to other technicians. Papers written without the appreciation of the overall problem and final pay-off. However, ! am not discouraged. I shall return. ! hope you will then have something
72
f
M . G . BEKKER
or sale. To make our future meetings more constructive, let me submit for your eventual consideration a few guidelines which we in the business and the management have adopted with full success: --Consolidate what you have nationally and internationally before you embark upon your new private venture. - - P r o m o t e what you have, not what you would like to have. - - S h o w potential gains in your proposal before you start selling your ideas. --Address yourself to vehicle user, designer and manufacturer, not to yourselves or to the Academe. - - N e v e r forget that not your peers, but the customer is your jury. We are not in Science. - - R e m e m b e r this is a straightforward applied mechanics and automotive engineering. It has very little to do with soil mechanics. --Cultivate professional heritage and good managerial practice with long-range planning for practical results. This closes my remarks which I have made as the Devil's Advocate. Before we adjourn, however, let me again stress the challenge we face. We have accomplished much during the past 15 years. It is now time to use our knowledge for the benefit of the user. What is needed today is not an endless search for perfection in an abstract vacuum, but pragmatic development of terrain-vehicle system analyses. Only when performing such analyses for specific systems, and only then, shall we develop meaningful improvements of the state of the art. There is no other way, in my opinion, to satisfy the user of our research, and to keep our dwindling business alive with the hope for survival, if not expansion. It seems obvious that implementation of these suggestions requires change in the intellectual leadership of this Society and in the management of research. This question, however, goes far beyond the scope of my remarks closing this Symposium. Thank you very much.